This Incredible Video Shows What the Next Generation of Video Game Humans Will Look Like

The first time I saw it I thought it was a real bloke just standing there. The amount of detail is just amazing, uncanny almost. Virtual humans have never managed to look all that realistic in games, at least those rendered in real time. Maybe they move like us, but when up close and personal, there’s always been something lacking -- until now.

The skin is just incredible and is the work of two researchers, Jorge Jimenez and Diego Gutierrez. Their "hours and hours of research, desperation, excitement, happiness, pride, sadness and extreme dedication" has resulted in a video game-targeted tech called Separable Subsurface Scattering.

As you can see it’s really quite impressive, rendered in real time and written in DirectX 10 (you can even download the demo and give it a whirl yourself). It’s the kind of detail you see in pre-rendered movies on the big screen. Make sure you watch it full screen in HD for the full, mind-blowing effect. [Vimeo via Rock, Paper, Shotgun via Kotaku]